Barry's No Good Very Bad Week
by trufflemores
Summary: Sometimes being a superhero is tough, and the weeks are long. But, hey - coming home to Iris West-Allen? Makes it all worth it. Sickfic.


Sighing deeply, Barry flops face-first down on the couch.

Seconds later, his phone vibrates. He considers letting the message go to voicemail. All he needs is a rejuvenating thirty-minute nap, but – his heroic half wins out, and he rolls over to answer it. "Hello?"

" _Hey, uh, Bar –_ " Barry groans at the sound of Ralph's voice, sitting up. " _Listen, sport, I, uh – there's a – small – fire in the – main room, could you – can't seem to find the fire extinguisher, heh—"_

Flashing over makes the ache in his temples throb, but he doesn't wait for Ralph to finish his explanation. Good thing, too – there's a fairly substantial blaze melting across the room. "Why didn't you call Caitlin?" he grunts, rubbing the side of his head.

"I don't actually have her number," Ralph admits, sidling behind him. "So, can you, uh—"

With an explanatory grunt, Barry Flashes again, siphoning off the flames. "Oh. Neat," Ralph says cheerfully, and Barry considers asking him what the hell caused the fire, but honestly? It's been that kind of week.

. o .

It starts on Sunday.

Just shy of sundown, meta-of-the-week Vortex whammies him so hard he can't walk straight for hours, clinging to walls and slipping hopelessly up and down steps. Unlike Top, who made his visual field spin, Vortex disrupts his inner ear balance. "So, in that way, he's more like Hartley than Top," Cisco denotes cheerfully.

"Great," Barry grunts, trying not to heave. "How do we stop him?" He tries to take a seat in a chair and ends up sprawled on the floor, waving a hand dismissively when Cisco asks if he needs help.

Unfortunately for his formerly leisurely patrol, the vertigo doesn't wear off until sunup, at which point Team Flash sans its namesake manages to wrangle Jim Fairborn, AKA Vortex, into custody. Able to stand for more than sixty seconds without being reduced to dry-heaving, Barry insists on going to work because – "I can't be late again."

He's still late, somehow. Even though he's pretty sure he takes the shortest route between STAR Labs and the precinct, the run seems to take twice as long as it usually does. Refusing to be rattled, he steps out of the elevators to find Officer Denmark filling in for Singh. His Monday morning welcome-back card is a write-up, commemorating another late day.

By midafternoon, he's in a powerfully bad mood. Winn's Earth-1 doppelganger, his new lab partner, finally busts out, "Buddy, pal, you're practically crackling. What's going on? I can feel the animosity." When Barry doesn't look away from his papers, straining to finish every scrap on his desk, Winn finally stands up and saunters over. "I do something wrong?" he asks quietly.

Barry has to turn away from his work, then, even though it aches in his teeth, reassuring Winn that no, he's just under a lot of stress right now. Winn encourages him to take that lunch break he avoided four hours ago and Barry says he's just going to wait until he clocks out to eat. The promise of food after pushes him to plow through the pages, focusing on his work until his head aches too ferociously to continue.

Squinty-eyed and stubborn, he flicks through the reports, page after page after page. They're all his, and he wasn't kidding when he told Patty Spivot that he hadn't read them all – most, yes, but sometimes he just had to bang 'em out and send them off to Singh, hoping for the best. He's careful, now, but with his vision clouding over, it's hard to focus on the print.

At some point, shoulders and neck stiff and hurting, he looks up and startles when he sees how dark it is outside. He's only finished eighteen pages.

Three-hundred-and-four to go.

Closing his eyes, he pushes back from his desk, stomach aching abominably, and resolves to find some chow, first.

Except he doesn't get there, because Caitlin calls on the horn, "Barry, you need to get to the precinct, there's a situation—"

He doesn't need her to finish: there's an explosion below, titanic in scope, and he's running thoughtlessly towards the catastrophe.

Forty-two seconds later, he has the entire building evacuated. Forty-three seconds later, he takes a single step on the pavement in real time and crumples.

He wakes up on a gurney next to an ambulance, surrounded by flashing red and blue lights and the noise, the pandemonium, of dozens of officers and other workers struggling to understand what happened and how they were saved. The same word is on all of their lips: The Flash, The Flash was here. But no one saw him, just felt the wind rush past. Tempting though it is to loll back into darkness, Barry blinks and focuses on the EMT talking to him, squeezing her hand and responding with his name.

At last, he grinds out, "I need Detective Joe West."

"Just relax," the EMT advises, and he wants to roll off the gurney and vanish into the night, but he can't even lift his head. She asks if he has his phone on him; he does her one better and sluggishly fishes it out of his pocket. Doubtless there are texts, maybe even a missed call or two, on the lock screen. Fortunately, nothing incriminating catches her attention. Instead, she asks for the pin – it takes him a moment to remember, vision greying at the edges – and finally she gets Joe on the phone, explaining the situation.

He's already on his way, and by the time they end the conversation Barry hears a faint shout of his name, but his grip is slipping, and he's barely awake when Joe finally sets both hands on his shoulders. "I'm here," he assures, in that deep, it's-okay tone. "Everything's gonna be fine…"

It must be, because Barry blinks back to consciousness with a thunderous headache in a familiar white-washed room, lights down so low he can barely make out the tiles along the ceiling. Still, a soft groan is all it takes to get Iris' attention, and then she's there, holding his hand and squeezing it gently, like it isn't almost midnight. He doesn't feel rested at all and knows the headache, the cold sweat won't dissipate until he eats, so he sits up with her and Cisco's help, and forces down a few high-calorie bars. It doesn't do much, his tank still on fumes, but it helps him hold onto consciousness long enough to straggle home.

A restless four hours of sleep separate him from a new day. The world outside is still dark at 3:42 AM, but his mind is painfully awake, refusing to sink back under the churning waves of unconsciousness. Untroubled, Iris is still asleep next to him, one arm draped over his chest protectively. He's hot and restless, so he slides out from under her arm without waking her, and slips outside to the little balcony to bask in the cool city air.

He stays there until sunrise, and then he pushes himself to his feet and cooks breakfast, like any other day. He wolfs down as much as he can stomach, but his appetite is dimmer than usual, his mind heavier, his step slower. Despite his sluggishness, he presses on. The terrorist responsible for the CCPD attack is still out there, and he won't let anyone die because he wasn't there to help.

Tuesday bleeds into Wednesday, and still they have no sign of their target. Barry falls asleep in the Cortex, flat on the floor, for the better part of two hours while he waits for Cisco and Caitlin to run through the scans for any sort of metahuman activity. Someone drapes a blanket over his shoulders. Iris encourages a pillow under his head. The hunt carries on, and he waits, half-awake, until suddenly Cisco exalts with more enthusiasm than intended, "Yahtzee! We got 'em." Lowering his voice, he adds comically, "Sorry, sorry, I forgot you were—"

Barry waves a hand dismissively, pushing himself to his feet carefully, heavier than before. "Where?" is all he says.

The Trickster is hiding in a decrepit Central City subway line, rigged to the gills with explosives and raring for a fight. Barry fronts the takedown, approaching Trickster dead-on as a lone wolf, while Wally and Cisco circle around, surreptitiously casting heaps of explosives through a breach onto a dead Earth. Cindy obscures Trickster's tech long enough to create the false impression that Barry is alone, and within eight minutes they've successfully removed all of the explosives.

Flashing in for the finale, Barry grimaces in pain as electricity courses through him, the Trickster's jacket erupting in sparks. Then he disappears in a whiff of smoke, and shrieks with delight over a loudspeaker as he proclaims, "Tricked ya!"

They call in reinforcements on Thursday, pulling Jay and Jesse to help ensure Axel doesn't attack any other part of the city while they pin down the _real_ Walker and not a hologram. Barry's hands are still numb from the target, clumsy and heavy, but he's certain the tingling sensation will pass on its own time. Inconveniently, it lingers, but he doesn't go into work – can't go into work, not with a massive portion of the precinct still in shambles.

Instead, he works as the other guy, patrolling the city in uniform non-stop, and sixty-two hours later, they cuff the real Axel Walker.

Slowly, the numbness retreats from Barry's shoulders, his arms, his hands, until he can feel the stiff little crackles of pain. One hell of a party trick, he thought, grimacing as he flexed his fingers.

His final task had been to rebuild the precinct – instructing Jay, Jesse, and Wally, fronting as much stuff as he could bear. It took half the night, and he was nearly flinching with every step from exhaustion, but they put it back together, piece-by-piece.

In a daze, Barry walked through the early morning lit precinct, still in uniform. Jesse and Jay bid him farewell, but Wally lingered, flushed with exertion but beaming with pride.

Barry, for his part, was simply thrilled to limp back home and call in sick.

. o .

"Really sorry to bug ya," Ralph says, smiling sheepishly. "But, hey – good to know we have extinguishers."

Taking a marker from the wall, Barry darts over to the dry-erase board and scribbles down four numbers alongside four names. "Cisco, Caitlin, Joe, Singh," he recites. "Call them, in that order, if something else comes up." For good measure, he throws Wally's number on the board, capping the marker and tossing it down.

Ralph salutes. "Yessir," he says, but Barry is already gone, Flashing back off to his apartment.

The _new_ apartment. It's nice – cozy, fresh, full of warmth and well-protected. The windows aren't as large as the floor-to-ceiling style of the old loft, but the little balcony is perfect for early morning breakfasts with Iris. Toeing off his shoes, he nearly crawls to the couch, mouth full of cotton and head full of white noise.

God, he's so tired. Flushed and sore, too, and he lowers his trembling limbs to the couch, like a broken doll struggling to untangle its strings. He doesn't even bother rearranging the pillows, flattening against them as-is and clocking out.

He sleeps through Iris arriving home for lunch, only vaguely aware of her stroking his side once affectionately before smoothing out the pillows to a less neck-aching degree. Making a soft sound of approval, he doesn't even open his eyes as he dozes on their magnificently deep couch, long and wide enough for him to sprawl without needing to hook his feet over the end. He hears her on the phone, is vaguely aware of her calling off the afternoon, and wants to be selfless enough to say that she doesn't need to do it before deciding that it's fine. It's Friday. They've both been up for more hours than any human being should be.

God, she must be just as tired as he is, he thinks, and it's that thought that finally pries his eyelids open. Sitting up slowly, he moves with stiff-limbed disobedience into a seated position. "Hey, babe," she greets, saluting him with a mug of coffee, affection in her tone and quiet fatigue in her eyes. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

He shrugs and reaches up to rub his eyes, groaning softly in pain. _Oh, my head_ , he thinks, and doesn't realize he's said it out loud until she sits next to him, resting a palm on his neck, kneading gently. Tipping his chin to his chest, he groans. Searching for words, he finds them, thick and slow in his mouth: "'S … 's everything okay?"

She kisses his shoulder. "No," she says, and he blinks, eyelids sliding open to half-mast. "You're not," she clarifies.

He wants to assure her that it doesn't matter because it's part of the job, that this is just what being The Flash _means_ , but oh, he loves the way her thumb presses gently against the base of his skull. Purring, a low, deep Speed-rumbling, he lets his eyelids slide shut again, slouching over his knees.

She puts her coffee aside and encourages him to lay back down with gentle nudges, and he obliges thoughtlessly, sinking into the cushions. He's only half-aware of her draping a blanket over him, and even less so of her making sure the place is still safe and secure – a habit they've fallen into, now, and far from the worst that could happen after everything – before sitting next to him. He lifts his head onto her leg and pillows his cheek against her thigh, exhaling in satisfaction when she traces her hand through his hair.

He must doze off at some point, because he's next aware of familiar voices, an episode of _Friends_ playing from the TV. Something smells divine nearby, and he considers opening his eyes but it is so … much … effort. Nuzzling the surface under his head a little, he stays where he is, soaking in the comfort of Iris' presence.

His growling stomach finally hauls him back to awareness, but he blinks and there's a protein bar in front of him, and he reaches out with heavy half-numb fingers to bring it to his mouth, sinking his teeth into it, eyes closed. He barely makes it through the bar before tucking an arm around the pillow now under his head and hugging it close, and tries not to feel disappointed until Iris returns, this time near his feet, typing away on her laptop. The subtle click-click is more soothing to Barry than the rumble of thunder outside, an achingly sweet portent of rain.

His phone doesn't vibrate, and he doesn't wonder why. Instead he listens to the rain trickle down, and he finds something like peace in the simple act of dozing, only awakening long enough to munch down another protein bar. A deep, heaviness settles over his chest, and he turns onto his back at some point and sleeps like that until it aches, too, and then he finally sits upright and finds a dark apartment.

Iris is in their little kitchen area, phone flat on the table as she texts someone, feet propped up and laptop open, glasses on as she skims down the page. He wants to fall back asleep, trusting her entirely, but the ache in his back is too powerful. He has to stand. It's an arduous task, and it catches Iris' attention immediately. She abandons her task and steps over to him, carefully draping an arm around his waist for support. "You good?" she asks, and he nods.

There's a stuffiness in his head that makes him want to press a pillow over it until it disappears, but he knows it won't relent that easily. "I'm gonna shower," he tells her, kissing the top of her head, and she squeezes his waist a little.

"You want company?" she asks lightly, and he hums, nuzzling her shoulder.

 _Do I ever not?_ he muses, nodding once instead, and oh how _glad_ he is for it as she soaps up his back for him, humming a tune he doesn't recognize. He doesn't ask about it, enjoying it for what it is, boneless with relief by the time the water cools. He doesn't want to move at all, ever again, could happily slouch in the tub and fall asleep. But the gentlest of coaxing touches has him obediently stepping out of the shower, taking the towel that she hands him and drying off, smiling when she ruffles his hair for him.

Feeling decidedly more human, he slings a pair of loose-fitting pajama pants on, yawning into her shoulder as he hugs her from behind, entirely impeding her ability to get dressed. "Bar," she teases, reaching up to squeeze the back of his neck, and he hums and kisses the back of her shoulder before backing off, trailing over to the bed and crawling on top of the covers. He's hot – a little hotter than he should be, even for a speedster – and the thought of getting under them is stifling.

Draping an arm behind his head, he watches her with half-lidded amusement, murmuring, "How'd I get so lucky?"

"You didn't make fun of McSnurtle, for starters," Iris teases, sitting on the edge of the bed and squeezing his foot. "Need anything?"

He pats the pillow beside him explanatorily. Iris laughs. "Okay," she allows, and stands. He actually whines when she steps towards the door, but she assures, "I'll be back."

Humming, he waits, closing his eyes and listening to the rain, muffled now but still present. He's so tired, so heavy, so _happy_ , and he startles when he feels someone tug the blankets out from under him. Somewhat deliriously, he asks, "What's goin' on?"

Iris squeezes his foot. "I'm not sleeping on top of the covers," she explains, pulling the back up over him properly. Sliding into the space next to him, she cozies up against him, draping an arm and a leg over him. He traces his thumb across his shoulder, sighing.

"I'm sorry our life is crazy," he tells her, nuzzling the top of her head.

She squeezes his side lightly. "We'll get better at it," she assures.

He likes the sound of that, almost as much as he likes her pressed against him, her sweet-smelling shampoo like summer to him, a promise of better times. Aloud, he says simply, "I love you more than anything."

She kisses his shoulder. "I love you, too, Bar," is all she says, and he knows she means it, exactly as much as he does, and marvels at the little everything they share.

Not for long, not consciously, at least – but a part of him, even in sleep, will always marvel over the fact that Iris stays with him, and loves him, in spite of everything.


End file.
